If the last two presidential elections tell us anything, it’s that Republicans
don’t succeed with candidates who lack clear vision and conviction consistent
with the party’s conservative platform.

Given this, I understand why Democrats think that New Jersey governor
Chris Christie should be a leading contender for the 2016 Republican
presidential nomination. But why would any Republican see a typical political
operative like Christie as presidential material?

With the information we have in front of us today, there is every reason to
believe that 2016 will be a year of opportunity for Republicans to run a serious
and exciting reform-minded candidate — a candidate who is ready and able to
provide the kind of leadership it will take to breathe life back into our
faltering nation.

The Obama presidency is exuding incompetence and unraveling on all fronts.

Each day we are greeted with new news about the crashing of the ill-conceived
and misguided Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare.

Looking at current economic realities at home and national security realities
abroad, little good news appears evident and there isn’t much reason to expect
any big positive surprises.

The American public is waking up to the fact that they elected, now twice, a
president who is long on rhetoric and way short on delivery, and they are
getting tired of it.

As things continue in this vein, by 2016, the American people will be ready for
some real hope and change. The door will be open for a Republican candidate who
is ready to take on the real challenges facing us, and offer solutions like
across-the-board reform of entitlements, real tax reform, real cuts in
superfluous government spending and reassertion of a strong and clear America in
the international arena.

How can a governor like Christie, who has been at the helm of one of the
worst-performing state economies in the nation — unemployment and poverty rates
well above the national average, among the nation’s worst in job creation, with
one of the highest tax burdens in the country — be the exciting candidate
Republicans will be looking for?

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Why, when the American people will be thirsty for a real reform-minded leader,
would Republicans turn to yet another visionless business-as-usual politico?

And what evidence is there that Christie is anything but this?

We do have plenty of evidence that Christie behaves like we would expect any
business-as-usual politician to behave.

He has demonstrated that his own political calculations are more important to
him than his party or his nation.

Why else would he not have made a Republican appointment to the Senate when New
Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg passed away? Instead, he decided to allow
a special election to entice popular black Newark, N.J., Mayor Corey Booker to
run for the open Senate seat, taking him out of the game to challenge Christie
in his re-election campaign.

At a time when every Republican vote in the Senate is crucial, Christie opted to
forego the opportunity of adding another Republican vote there because of his
lack of courage to take on a strong Democrat opponent in his own re-election
bid.

So running against a weak and underfunded Democrat opponent, incumbent Christie
was re-elected.

The nation abounds in courageous, innovative Republican governors.

Unlike Christie, who took federal money available under Obamacare and to expand
Medicaid in New Jersey, 21 states are refusing to take this bribe.

And this includes states with reform-minded Republican governors like Bobby
Jindal in Louisiana, Rick Perry in Texas, Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Nikki
Haley in South Carolina.

And then, of course, we have Christie’s flip-flop on same-sex marriage,
announcing that he would not challenge a New Jersey court decision to allow
same- sex marriage — after Christie led everyone to believe he would oppose
this.

So, again I ask. Why would any Republican think about Christie as a presidential
contender?

STAR PARKER, a Washington Examiner columnist, is an author and president of
CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education. She can be reached at
www.urbancure.org